We're
sure that you've heard, but just in case you've been in a cave somewhere,
ESA has been apparently taking notes from NASA and lost their little
Beagle II Mars Lander. So all the hype was merely that and now two continents
worth of "Rocket Scientists" aren't looking too smart.

Excuses
and finger pointing has already begun, but it just boils down to Mars
isn't worth the money and aggravation. We'd expect that Charles Darwin
is probably rolling over in his grave, none the less.

Of
course this offers fodder for the wacko Art Bell and George Noory Coast
to Ghost show, and their band of hallucinogenic radio show listeners
who are already claiming it's Martians and an Aliens conspiracy. Here's
the original story:

This is a little
off our usual beat, but we all thought it was so cool . . .

The European Space
Agency's Mars Express probe is scheduled to land on Christmas Eve and
ESA is inviting you to watch. ESA has enlisted the services of Dutch
systems integrator Capcave B.V., which in turn brought in Speedera Networks
Inc. of Santa Clara, Calif., to provide high-performance a quality multimedia
content-delivery services. ESA is expecting millions to be tuned into
not their TV but their computers.

The exciting event
can be followed at ESA's European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in
Darmstadt, Germany, on Thursday, 25 December, from 01:30 to 14:00 ,
together with the mission managers, the operation teams, scientists
and top ESA management, including ESA's Director-General Jean-Jacques
Dordain, ESA’s Director of Science David Southwood and

ESA's Director of Technical
and Operational Support Gaele Winters. The highlights of the night will
also be webcast over the internet at http://mars.esa.int.

Mars Express promises
to provide the most detailed view yet of the Red Planet. Its lander, called
Beagle 2, was released on Friday and is scheduled to land on Mars on Christmas
Eve (EST). It will scour the surface for water and lifeforms, and those images
will be streamed to the ESA
site. The probe, built for the ESA by a consortium of European companies,
is equipped with scientific instruments that will be used to perform remote-sensing
experiments designed to shed new light on Mars' structure, geology, and
atmosphere, as well as its potential for supporting life.

As well as live streaming
of key events, the Mars Express site will have daily news, features, images,
videos and more.

The ESA TV Service will provide live coverage of operations, from the
Operations Control Centre at ESOC. All transmission and satellite details
are published online at http://television.esa.int.
All live transmissions are also carried free-to-air on Astra 2C at 19
degrees East, transponder 57, horizontal, (DVB-MPEG-2), frequency 10832
MHz, Symbol Rate 22000 MS/sec, FEC 5/6. The service name is ESA.